Monday, June 22, 2015

Media-Whore D'Oeuvres

President Obama with Marc Maron.

Courtesy of the White House.

"Say President Obama was making his way in a motorcade over to your house for an hour-long interview in your garage. How would you prepare? For Marc Maron, the comedian and host of the popular interview podcast WTF with Marc Maron, getting ready for Obama involved cereal and a guitar. On Friday morning, hours before the unprecedented POTUS podcast, crowds had already begun lining the streets surrounding Maron’s Highland Park, California, home with handmade posters. Secret Service had essentially annexed Maron’s property to ensure Obama’s safety, positioning snipers on a nearby roof, and a tent over his driveway. (The bomb-sniffing dogs had already swept the house in the days prior.) As the clock ticked closer to conversation time, Maron did his best to tune out the exterior chaos. 'I kind of hunkered down in my house with notes and coffee and my bowl of cereal and tried to find my own space,' Maron told us by phone on Friday afternoon. '[I was] kind of making sure I had as focused of a one-on-one experience with him as possible. . . . And I stayed kind of detached. I wasnÆt answering e-mails or texts or anything. I just wanted to stay focused to sort of be present with the president.' As WTF listeners know, the comedian also enjoys 'noodling' on his guitars, occasionally playing snippets of his jam sessions during podcasts. And in the moments before Maron’s presidential summit, jamming was also integral to finding his zen. 'I was playing my Gibson 335, not plugged in, but was playing it intensely and furiously.'" (VanityFair)

"She awoke feeling woozy and blamed it on the scary nightmare. She often had nightmares, everywhere she lived, and she had lived most everywhere. People called her impulsive. She thought of herself as a wanderer. She sat up and shook out her long hair. She wrapped her body in an orange sarong and brewed coffee. Suddenly she couldn't remember anything. Where was she, she wondered? She hoped it was somewhere exotic. Unseen he watched her. He’d been waiting for her. Hers was a life of impetuous traveling which meant relentless packing and unpacking. How many times had she done this she couldn't even count. Coffee mug in one hand, box cutter in the other she sliced straight lines down the binding tape. Debussy filled the background. He was a patient man, if he was a man at all. She didn’t feel it when she cut herself, but she saw the smudges on the cardboard; ochre orange fingerprints, ‘Pretty!’ she thought, and then she noticed the scrawled address on the side of the box. Jaipur. It wasn't a dream, she almost laughed out loud from relief. All day she retrieved belongings, slipping clothing onto hangers and into closets. Closets that smelled of disuse. Her fingertips hurt from the many tiny cuts." (Christina Oxenberg)

Yanna on stage at 54 Below.

"Last Thursday night I went over to 54 Below on West 54th between 7th and 8th, where Yanna Avis was performing her program of cabaret. Yanna, who is French, was married for a long time to Warren Avis, the rent-a-car tycoon. I can’t remember if we first met in Los Angeles or here in New York, but we have a lot of mutual good friends and have known each other a long time.Yanna had been an actress before she married Warren, but she put that away to have time to spend with her husband. Warren died at the ripe old age of 92 eight years ago this last April. It was about that time that Yanna began to focus once again on her love of performing. I call her The Chantouze. I’d never been to 54 Below before. Because of that, and because I’d never been in the cellar of Studio 54 in the old days (where all the wild druggy stuff allegedly happened), so I had only an idea of what it looked like. A cellar below a nightclub? Dark, grubby, damp, dank? I doubt it looked like it looks now: it’s a beautiful room for cabaret. I don’t know what you’d call the interior design style but it’s perfect for a first class cabaret. And there’s not a bad seat in the house, plus there’s enough space that you’re not packed in, and with a stage adequate enough to hold four or five musicians, a piano and the performer. The service is excellent, quick and attentive." (NYSD)